The Devil & The Second Amendment

Overturning that decision via a constitutional amendment to get rid of the Second Amendment would be simple and would do more to weaken the N.R.A.’s ability to stymie legislative debate and block constructive gun control legislation than any other available option.

That simple but dramatic action would move Saturday’s marchers closer to their objective than any other possible reform. It would eliminate the only legal rule that protects sellers of firearms in the United States — unlike every other market in the world. It would make our schoolchildren safer than they have been since 2008 and honor the memories of the many, indeed far too many, victims of recent gun violence.

Sir Thomas More, in Robert Bolt’s play A Man For All Seasons:

Roper: So now you’d give the Devil benefit of law!More: Yes. What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?Roper: I’d cut down every law in England to do that!More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned round on you — where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country’s planted thick with laws from coast to coast — man’s laws, not God’s — and if you cut them down — and you’re just the man to do it — d’you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake.

UPDATE: Good grief! I don’t say that Justice Stevens is advocating breaking the law. He’s not; he’s advocating working within the Constitutional system to amend the Constitution. My point is that if we got rid of the Second Amendment for the sake of trying to eliminate school shooters, we would remove from ourselves an important Constitutional protection.

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71 Responses to The Devil & The Second Amendment

The Founder’s Second Amendment by Stephen Holbrook is an accessible place to start.

Read the writings of the Founders, it is an individual right. Militias are made up of individuals that were suppose to be armed on their own accord.

A quick google search can produce many quotations and documents to that effect from the Founders themselves.

As to the treason comment, it was an attention grabber. Obviously writing an op ed doesn’t meet the requirements for treason by any stretch of the imagination in this country. However, it should boggle the mind that one of the people who’s job it was to uphold and defend the Constitution should be advocating for its gutting. We were warned of this long ago, we have had a pretty decent run for this experiment in representative republican government but now we have people clamoring for their rights and freedoms to be taken away for “safety”-safety from something less likely to happen than getting struck by lightning. Those who would trade freedom for safety deserve neither.

Which is why the U.S. converted Afghanistan and Iraq into peaceful democracies so very, very easily.”

The insurgents most effective weapon has probably been IEDs. Highly illegal in the US and if you happen to want to experiment with one, say on your friendly neighborhood marathon spectators, the Feds will literally shut down whatever city you happen to be in to take you down. So good luck with the treason.

“My point is that if we got rid of the Second Amendment for the sake of trying to eliminate school shooters, we would remove from ourselves an important Constitutional protection.”

That’s not at all a good point and the Man for All seasons was a hysterical response on your part.

We decide to repeal cosntitutional amendments from time to time, as we did in Prohibition. Repealing an amendment says nothing about protections. Repealing the 2nd amendment has no immediate effect on gun possession. The Amendment rather plainly refers to the concept of a well regulated militia, a concept we don’t need and haven’t used since 1860. Meanwhile the current laws and proposed actions are in a state of turmoil and “anybody’s guess” as to what the Supreme Court might do to further mangle the language of the Constitution, Actually changing the language is the ONLY hoenest way to address difficulties in the 2nd Amendment. Much much better than having an unelected judge “interpret” the Amendment beyond all recognition.

So, eliminate the outdated language and see where that leaves us. After that, majority rules.

That respect for the document is 180 out from “The Man for All Seasons.”

Give it up, it ws a bad analogy. we all have bad days.

(And the 2nd amendment will not be repealed in our combined lifetimes,)

On the one hand, you point out (rightly, I think) that in the event of an armed insurrection of citizens the military and police would easily prevail.

On the other hand, many of you point to the some of the horrific acts committed by the military (Abu Ghraib, Guantanamo) and the brutality of the police (unjustified killings of civilians, the no-knock warrants, the SWAT-ification of sleepy small-town cops, the militarization of the police in general) as bad things (also true).

So, we should take guns away from private citizens because we have the police and military to protect us. But we couldn’t win in a fight against the police and military anyway (again, true) and we can’t trust the police or the military to act with either justice or restraint (also true)…

But taking guns away from private citizens and repealing the second amendment is still a really good idea.

Re: Militias are made up of individuals that were suppose to be armed on their own accord.

But a militia is under the command of state authorities– it is not some self-directed vigilante mob. It has a chain of command that has elected civil officials at the top, just as the federal armed forces have the President as commander in chief.

Re: However, it should boggle the mind that one of the people who’s job it was to uphold and defend the Constitution should be advocating for its gutting.

“Gutting”. No he was suggesting a change to one small part of the Constitution– a document we have amended twenty seven times to correct or clarify problems with it, or else address issues in our nation that could not be adequately handled by the existing constitutional authority. The Constitution is not Scripture: it can be modified as need arises if enough people agree. I am leery about tampering with the Bill of Rights in any way, and I would not repeal the second amendment though I do think it’s badly written in a way that allows for interpretations all over the map and should perhaps be better clarified.

My point being, that those who objected were a decided minority and any objection they cared to raise was going to be drowned out by the approbation or indifference of the majority around them. There is not a single instanced in history of would-be tyranny with large scale public support being defeated by a minority of people by force of arms. George III in 1776, Charles I in 1640 and Louis XVI in 1789 do not qualify as tyrants. The more likely pattern occurs when some violent minority seizes control of government and becomes the tyrant, hence Lenin, Pol Pot, Castro etc.

“My point is that if we got rid of the Second Amendment for the sake of trying to eliminate school shooters, we would remove from ourselves an important Constitutional protection.”

But what is that protection that would be eliminated? Is it the right of states to form militias, independent of the standing Federal army (Stevens interpretation of the original intent of the amendment). Or is it the right of an individual to possess weapons for self defense (Scalia’s interpretation as set forth in Heller)?

Bret Stephens also is advocating for this. If they want to try to amend the Constitution, they should go right ahead. Good luck getting 75% of the states to agree to get rid of the 2nd Amendment, though, just looking at the map (you know, all of those pesky damned red states “where no-one lives”, but are, well, still states and all that …) but, hey, knock yourselves out, folks.

I share your puzzlement. Being “on the left” (a question-begging term in my never humble opinion about such things), I can offer a criticism which the left too often directs in more general terms at the right. Ahem.

People are ignorant of the content and meaning of the Constitution. They fill in the gaps of their ignorance with emotivism and the popular anti-expert rant du jour.

Leftists, pot-kettle-black. Rightists, willful ignorance is not noble. Both, get your heads out of your [ahem] and start acting like rational beings.

People need to read The Federalist Papers, not because they contain some great, wise insight to our laws (which they do, but only indirectly), but because they show a clear picture of the issues and attitudes of the time. They are unabashed propaganda, albeit based upon and informed by facts and the recent history of the times.

With the Trump presidency, we got the enema we so desperately needed and so richly deserved. The next crucial step is to demand and get a constitutional convention. The true swamp is in our vast and chaotic mix of laws and regulations. People want campaign reform, or term limits, or constraints on gerrymandering. That’s all piecemeal and well-nigh impossible to get. Or, as Ripley said in Aliens: Let’s return to the ship and nuke the site from orbit. It’s the only way to be sure.

Anyone is a fool who says, I have seen some people say already, that it is a boon to conservatives that some liberals are now admitting they support repealing the second amendment. Or at least it takes a pathological lack of political imagination to not see that, if same-sex marriage became popular after just forty years of homophilic activism and the worm turned on transgendered rights with remarkable speed, that public opinion is also malleable on civil liberties. At any rate conservatives should remember that their movement began with a crazy Arizona senator who got hunilated by Lyndon Johnson in 1964. In a world where the second amendment had been repealed, it had happened because at some point citizens began to make that demand.

“However, it should boggle the mind that one of the people who’s job it was to uphold and defend the Constitution should be advocating for its gutting.“

You are arguing that the repeal of the 18th Amendment was a “gutting” of the Constitution? For reals?

The 18th Amendment wasn’t part of the Bill of Rights. We have not yet formally repealed any portion of the Bill of Rights. (Circumscribed through case law and enforcement practice, sure; but not formally repealed.) I think doing so would set a bad precedent.

People need to read The Federalist Papers, not because they contain some great, wise insight to our laws (which they do, but only indirectly), but because they show a clear picture of the issues and attitudes of the time. They are unabashed propaganda, albeit based upon and informed by facts and the recent history of the times.

Don’t forget the writings of the Antifederalists, those who opposed the new Constitution. The Library of America has published a collection of papers, articles, letters, etc. both for and against the ratification of the Constitution, under the title The Debate on the Constitution. Some of the Antifederalist writings can be found in other sources as well. The debate itself was important and was conducted at a sophisticated level. The Antifederalists raised important points. In many ways we owe the Bill of Rights to the Antifederalists.

Erin Manning: I have to admit that sometimes some of you on the Left puzzle me.

That’s because you’re lumping together the fragmented, conflicting opinions of different factions and trying to engage the amalgamation as a coherent unit.

You’re wasting your time.

The only thing the different factions have in common is broad support for more gun control. Some want to go the full Australian route and do nationwide confiscation. Others just want to reinstate the assault weapons ban and have stricter enforcement of existing laws. Some, like Stevens, want to repeal the 2nd Amendment. Still others want to outlaw handguns. It’s a hodgepodge.

The left is no more of a homogeneous ideological monolith than the right is.

So, we should take guns away from private citizens because we have the police and military to protect us.

Those who favor confiscation tend to do so because they’re pacifists, they genuinely believe it will reduce gun-related deaths, they think it will make society more civilized, and/or they feel too many Americans can’t be trusted with guns i.e. can’t be trusted not to commit mass murder.

Ideally, yes, the protection provided by police and the military would render the personal protection justification for gun ownership obsolete. In much of the populated parts of the country, it largely does. (I think broad social norms of non-violence do most of the work. However, as I said upthread, there are swaths of this country that are still wilderness and/or too remote and sparsely populated for the police to provide adequate protection. But, I digress.)

Baked into your statement is the assumption that all on the left view all of the police and all of the military as evil, corrupt, and untrustworthy. That’s a caricature. Some on the left–particularly anarchists and the more rabid SJWs–really do feel that way. Many, probably most, don’t.

There are serious problems with some of our police and elements of our military (and intelligence apparatus), but overall both are a long way from the sort of tyrannical regime that would engage in unfettered mass warfare against its own population.

One of them, but not the only one. The point is your brandishing of nuclear weapons is just empty honking.

Highly illegal in the US and if you happen to want to experiment with one, say on your friendly neighborhood marathon spectators, the Feds will literally shut down whatever city you happen to be in to take you down. So good luck with the treason.

LOL, yeah, right the same feds who let those real life marathon bombers in as refugees.

Who’s the real traitor here?

And why, oh, why would we not trust these wunnerful, oh-so-wunnerful feds?
Since you seem to be gleefully rubbing your hands in anticipation of

My point being, that those who objected were a decided minority and any objection they cared to raise was going to be drowned out by the approbation or indifference of the majority around them.

Indifference perhaps, but Hitler never won a majority, any more than Trump or Clinton did. In fact, he came to power with a far smaller minority, albeit a plurality. Further, if there is a sufficient mix of indifference and inchoate dissatisfaction, an armed resistance can sometimes coalesce a majority. I notice you don’t even respond concerning Italy…

But a militia is under the command of state authorities

Sure, but you missed the line in The Federalist Papers about “officers of their own choosing.” The reason for the shift from reliance on militia to organizing a National Guard is that the militia sometimes declined to shoot striking workers.

“On the one hand, you point out (rightly, I think) that in the event of an armed insurrection of citizens the military and police would easily prevail.”

It all depends on the question of time preference. An insurgency foolishly motivated to fight a centralized ‘once and for all’ style battle would be defeated quickly and easily.

While I agree with those who argue our military and police would support the confiscation of guns, and those who argue these institutions would be much harsher towards their own citizens than they have been towards those in our myriad fruitless conflicts over the last 60+ years (due to a more real and direct threat to power), the fact remains that our armed forces have struggled finding a way to permanently suppress highly motivated guerilla insurgencies. Part of this is due to logistical issues, but part of this is due to the nature/structure of our armed forces as an institution.

Furthermore, just as the US is always happy to send arms into conflicts, it is safe to assume others would have similar motivations in our own domestic conflicts (the US has made plenty of enemies who would love to see a sustained conflict weaken it even further). Once that sort of thing happens, the nature of any conflict becomes more complex. Ask the Bush administration.

A big part of a successful rebellion or insurgency depends upon long time preferences. While the South was wrong on the issue of slavery, there are solid arguments that a more patient strategy might have altered the outcome of the war (again, in part dependent upon how highly motivated the average rebel was, and how long that motivation could be sustained.)

These are all laughably unlikely scenarios in the near term, still improbable in the mid-term, but civil conflict is not a ridiculous concern long-term, especially given our changing demographics and human nature as it relates to ethnic strife. So it is fun to think about.

Besides, if progressives truly believed it would be so easy to squash an armed insurgency, they wouldn’t be so obsessed with disarming population after population. The fact that they want to disarm you is a tell that they fear you and your guns. So, make it an arms race and increase the degree of fear they feel (since emoting is what they do best).

Isidore,
One reason the South lost the Civil War is that it could not afford to maintain a large fraction of its population under arms. By 1864 CSA troops were deserting in droves in large part because their families needed them to come home and tend to things that had been put off too long and which the women, children and elderly could do on their own. (the North had a bigger population base, and also inducted immigrants fresh off the boat). A more extreme example is Paraguay in the Paraguayan War of 1864-70 in which so many men were conscripted into the army that the economy collapsed and a large portion of the population starved. In today’s world of living paycheck to paycheck it would even more difficult for any significant number people to leave their livelihoods for very long, which is one reason the armed forces are mostly made up of young people who do not yet have serious livelihoods to leave. Workers do not even strike very often these days because most cannot afford to be without their pay checks for even a couple weeks.